What We Are
by Rosaliebyrd13
Summary: An occlumens. A telepath. A sixteen year old girl. An eternal adolescent. A war hero. A monster. A witch. A vampire. These are the things that Isabella Swan and Edward Cullen are and also the things that they aren't. Together they'll help each other see the good and bad in themselves. Short and sweet chapters, long and sweeter story. Read and Review!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey y'all! This is a rewrite of an earlier attempt of mine to write a Twilight/Harry Potter crossover that stalled epically. I really hope you like it! Essentially it is the same story that I envisioned years ago, and will share many of the same characters and plot points, it will simply be stylized a bit differently. For now the chapters are short and bite-sized but they'll probably get longer as time goes on. Let me know what you think!**

When I was a little girl, I'd sit on the floor beside my grandmother's arm chair, lean my head against her knee, and listen to her parse spells and read allowed book reviews from Modern Potioneer.

No one had to tell me that magic was real, in other words.

My grandmother was ancient, in only the way a pureblood witch can be. She used to joke that her mother had been Morgan LeFay, and when I was quite young I believed her. Despite her age and station in life she was always kind to me, an impish half-blood, product of some youthful tryst between her daughter and an American muggle. I'm sure that my high energies and impertinent questions upset her refined sensibilities and disrupted her plan of a graceful decent into age and insanity but she cared for me nonetheless and did her best to educate me in the ways of our kind. Never once during the course of my childhood did she cause me to feel shame over my origins and, although she despaired of my diet while in his care, she dutifully delivered me to my father's house twice a year, for four days in the fall for the American feast of Thanksgiving and two weeks in the summer. As much as I disrupted my grandmother's silver years I truly baffled Charlie's quiet, solitary existence. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Charlie delighted in teaching me everything he could about his happy and simple world, where the weekends were spent fishing and watching sports and the weekdays were spent guarding the townspeople.

No one could dispute that I was beloved and loved, in other words.

By the time I entered Hogwarts I was a well-formed girl of eleven, equal parts curious and dutiful, well mannered and clever. And because I was still a child I didn't pay much attention to the darkness that was stirring throughout Wizarding Britain. It didn't matter that Sirius Black, mass-murderer and death eater had broken out of Azkaban, the fact that I was sorted Ravenclaw clearly took precedence. My roommates and I laughed and studied and explored despite the dementors that surrounded our castle home. The next year when we were barred from the Yule ball simply because we were "too young" we held our own party in a spare classroom and at midnight we snuck through the halls, ducking behind suits of armor and tapestries of dancing trolls and pressing our faces up against the windows of the Great Hall in order to glimpse the older students dancing past midnight. We watched the tournament tasks half filled with trepidation, half with boredom and we cried ourselves sick when Cedric Diggory, the most beautiful boy any of us had ever seen, was killed. In third year I joined the DA despite my roommate's pleas and in fourth year I was thrown down the Grand Staircase when Voldemort's followers invaded the school. A lot of things happened my fifth year. For one, I turned sixteen. For another, I stopped viewing myself as a child and started to think of myself as a soldier.

No one had to tell me I would die young, in other words.

Nevertheless my friends and I prepared for the inevitable final battle, faced our own mortality head on, and still managed to hold a fantastic New Years bash.

The real shock was the fact that after the war was over, I was still alive.


	2. Chapter 2

I leave St. Mungos as soon as I'm cleared, three and a half weeks after the final battle. I'm certainly not the first one out, but I'm not the last either, the girl in the bed across from mine was hit with a confundus curse so bad that she didn't start speaking English until our second week in the ward. Now she watches me as I pack my things into a duffle bag brought to me by Fayge, my dearest friend. Fayge watches me too with wide brown eyes. She's worried and I know this because she's told me so at least a dozen times since I informed her of my plans.

 _"You're leaving?" I feel her hands still in my hair for a second before she begins braiding again._

 _"Just for the summer. I haven't seen my dad since-" I choke on the words, "since the summer after third year. I need to at least let him know I'm… alright. And staying with him for the summer will be a nice… well it will just be a nice way to get away from it all."_

 _Fayge's quiet as she ties off my braid and moves to the other side of the bed for the other half of my hair. "I understand," she almost whispers. "Last year was hell. We all need a break after that. I just wish…"_

 _"You wish I wouldn't run quite so far away."_

 _"I never said you're running away," Fayge rebuts sharply. "This isn't running away. This is you doing what you need to do, which is what all of us are doing in our own way." She finishes off my second braid and moves to sit before me on the bed, clutching my face between her hands, "What I wish is that I could hold on to you for the rest of my life, just to make sure you're alive and well and happy."_

 _Her dark eyes convey such utter sincerity that it takes all my will to keep from blurting out that 'of course I won't go anywhere, what on earth was I thinking I'll just stay here with you always.' But instead I hold fast, and say, "It's only for the summer. I'll be back on the Platform on September 1_ _st_ _and then you and I will go to school and we'll read by the Black Lake and study in the Library and hold fabulous parties in the common room and have marvelous adventures, like every sixth year girl ought to."_

 _"You must promise me. You must swear to me that that will happen." Fayge whispers, and I see tears begin to build on her lower lashes, "You cannot leave me in that dorm alone. I'll never forgive you if you do."_

 _And there it is, the chasm that threatens to swallow us whole: our other roommates, the two that completed our happy little foursome, were gone. Madison, sarcastic and whip-smart, beautiful with her stick straight brown hair and plethora of freckles had disappeared over Easter hols. Fayge and I held out hope that she and her parents had simply fled to the continent in order to wait out the war, but that hope grew dim as the weeks passed without word. We could hold no such hope for Winifred. Gorgeous, arrogant, rebellious Winifred had been killed in the collapse of the Hospital Wing during the final battle. Just last week volunteers had dug the last of the remains out from under the rubble of the partially destroyed castle. Current plans were to hold a mass interment and memorial service in mid June or early July. Winifred's parents had already held a small service without her body. It was quite possibly the worst experience of my life._

 _"I promise," I tell Fayge, tears falling from my own eyes, and I mean it with everything that I am. I will find a way to be on the Platform come September 1_ _st_ _crippling sadness be damned._

"I promise," I say again now, echoing the unvoiced question in Fayge's eyes. "I'll see you on the Platform."

She nods at me and when I'm finished packing she walks with me to the portkey center on level 2 of St. Mungos. We pause together outside of the doorway. On the other side there will be an official from the transportation division waiting to hand me a lolly wrapper or something equally as innocuous that will take me to my father's house in Washington. Once I am gone she will proceed to the apparition point down the hall and pop back to her parent's home in the rurals of Herefordshire. For now though we simply look at each other.

Before the final battle we used to look at each other a lot, all of us in our little foursome, wondering if we would see one another's next birthday, wondering if we'd be there to give stern talking tos to future husbands and to kiss the eyes of future babies.

Now Fayge and I look at each other and we know. We know that we'll see one another again, and fairly soon at that.

"You'll write, yeah?" she asks.

"That's a stupid question," I say without thinking and we grin together. "You'll have to write first though, as I haven't an owl at the mo'."

And that's how we leave it, grinning but not cheerful, sad but not weepy. I step through the doors of the portkey center and she turns to walk down the hallway and neither of us looks over our shoulder at the other like we might have mere weeks ago. It's only for the summer, after all.

"Isabella Swan," I tell the wizard behind the desk, and I wait patiently and avoid examining his rather impressive amount of ear hair as he checks my name against the list attached to his clipboard. Seeing that I have, in fact, been cleared to fly he roots around in a cardboard box and fishes out a t-shirt that has obviously seen better days.

"You're cutting it close," he muses, holding the rag out to me and waving it a bit, never taking his eyes off his clipboard. "Portkey leaves in thirty seconds. You'd better take it."

I do, and fifteen seconds later I am gone.

 **Thoughts? Review!**


	3. Chapter 3

It's been years since I last took a portkey and so instead of landing gracefully on my feet like any respectable witch reared in magic might, I crash to the ground with a spray of pine needles and dirt. The hard ground of the forest behind my father's house jolts through my bones like lightning and winds me. I use this as an excuse to remain lying down for longer than I otherwise might, and I take the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Washington sky. It is cloudy and gray and obscured by trees, which is to say that it is exactly the same as the last time that I was here, two years ago.

Another three minutes of quiet contemplation on the forest floor and I am ready to see my dad. Or face him, really, since I'd never exactly written a letter explaining why I'd suddenly dropped all communication.

It's a short walk from the edge of the woods to the little white clapboard house, and an even shorter detour to the front door, which seems more appropriate for an impromptu reunion than the back porch. As I round the corner I notice that Dad's parked his police cruiser in the middle of the yard, and this brings about an even stronger sense of déjà vu than the steel colored sky. It didn't matter that the wheels of his automobile tore up the grass or sometimes got stuck in the mud, Charlie Swan was not going to park in the driveway.

The doorbell is unfamiliar under my finder, but that's only because I'd never had occasion to ring it before. Years ago, when my grandmother was still alive and brought me for visits, we'd apparate to the back porch where my father would be waiting with a big grin and open arms. Things are different now, of course.

I don't have long to dwell on the differences however, because several clomping footsteps and a short eternity later the door opens and then there's just a screen between me and my dad.

He stares for a second. Blinks. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four. And then…

"Bells!" he shouts and he shoves the screen door so forcefully that I hve to leap out of the way to avoid getting slapped in the face.

Then his arms are around me and I'm suffocating against his flannel-clad shoulder and he's crushing me to him like I'm some great treasure and I get a bit weepy.

Actually I break down entirely, hiccoughing and sobbing and snotting up a storm but I can't bring myself to be embarrassed because I can hear him dong the same.

"Oh god, Bells," I hear his muffled voice break on my name, "I thought… I thought…" he can't put words to what he thought, but it's alright because neither can I.

"I'm so sorry," I sob over and over again, "Daddy I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay baby girl, it's okay. I got you now," he says and it's the first time that anyone has said that to me in a long time and it's the first time that I've believed it in a long time too. The last year doesn't matter because my dad's got me now and it's okay.

We stand like that for minutes, ages maybe, on the font stoop of the little house. Eventually though Dad pulls back from me and we go inside. I can see him taking stock as I drop the now useless t-shirt and my bags and hang my traveling cloak. I know what he sees too, I know he can tell that I'm toeing off a pair of my school shoes, a pair of oxfords that got a bit muddy when I crash-landed. I'm wearing a pair of uniform trousers and a Ravenclaw jumper and with me I've got one duffle and one rucksack. Even though there are undetectable extension charms on both bags, anyone can see that I'm traveling light, especially for how long I'm planning on staying.

Altogether I know I must look petty pathetic. He doesn't seem to mind though, merely looking me over and over again. Both of us swipe at our eyes and noses, trying to regain ourselves from the overt display of strong emotion toward each other that is so unusual for us.

Dad's voice is still a bit hoarse when he asks, "D'you want something to drink? Are'ya hungry?" He glances apprehensively toward the kitchen and my lips curve slightly upward, sensing that he doesn't have anything truly edible in the house. He rubs the back of his neck, looking rather sheepish. "We could go to the diner in town if'ya want to. I remember… I remember you likin' their food okay."

I drag a hand through my hair, noticing for the first time in days how greasy and truly unkempt it has become. An idea dawns. "Actually could I grab a shower first? And then the diner?" I ask hopefully. A shower all to myself, without healer-trainees mere months older than me watching to make sure I don't collapse and without fellow patients on the ward hogging the good stalls sounds like heaven.

"Sure," Dad nods, "I'll just ah… just wait for you here," he says, and settles himself down on the edge of the couch with his elbows knees, as though preparing for a good long think.

"Brill," I say, and grab my bags from where they life by the door. Gently I nudge the front door closed again, and I turn the deadbolt for good measure, even though I know for a fact that Dad's never locked that door in his life and still been on the inside. But it quiets something dark in the back of my brain, and so I do it anyway. Then I scamper up the narrow staircase to the bathroom that I know will be all mine for the duration of my stay. Technically the bathroom is meant to be shared by the two bedrooms on the second floor but Dad had never really held with that, especially after I hit puberty, and so whenever I visited he shifted his few toiletries to the much smaller downstairs lav and let me have full run of the place. For this small gesture I am, and always have been, eternally grateful.

It takes me a good five minutes to fish out a fresh set of clothing from my duffle, and then I am off to have my first real, truly relaxing shower in three and a half weeks.

 **I never bought the whole "Bella calls her dad by his first name and he's cool with it" thing. That always seemed like a cheap and needless ploy to create even more distance in one of Bella's only human relationships in order to excuse how easy her decision to turn all fang-tastic was. I also really didn't believe the whole "teenage girl and her middle aged father share a bathroom" thing because 1) it didn't really add anything to the plot of the books and 2) what house only has a bathroom on the second floor?! So I corrected both. You're welcome. Feel free to drop me a comment about how wrong I am. Or, ya know, what you think of the story. Either way.**


	4. Chapter 4

I find my shampoos and soaps exactly where I left them, under the bathroom counter along with a loufa that has, in all honesty, gone a bit moldy. A wave of my wand only serves to partially disintegrate it, and so I bin the poor thing and start the water.

I let steam fog the mirrors before I even undress and by the time I step behind the curtain the water is wondrously scalding.

For a long while I simply bask in it, turning my head this way and there in the spray. I let the plains of my face become riverbeds. My torso becomes a shallow waterfall. My back I don't think about, as I haven't been thinking about it the past three and a half weeks. I simply let the water wash over it, through all of the newly formed nooks and crannies, peaks and crevices that track across skin and into muscle.

 _"It's a bit… devastating." Fayge admits, when I ask her what it looks like. I don't ask again, and I don't try to look for myself._

Eventually I commence the scrubbing. It takes two rounds of shampoo and conditioner and another three rounds of soap before I'm convinced that I'm truly free of the smell of the ward. Another pass of soap satisfies the dark thing in the back of my brain that sill sometimes smells burning flesh. An additional 10 minutes standing frozen under the water allows the heat to finally penetrate my bones. And finally I am done, prune-y and pink and human again.

The outfit that I managed to pull together would have killed Winifred, were she alive to see it.

It's a pleated school skirt, black to match our robes, and knee length for modesty's sake, though I've never known anyone who didn't roll the waist at least a few times to show off a little extra leg.

The top is an old band tee from a concert that our fearsome foursome attended winter break of third year. It's styled like a quidditch jersey, with "The Snidgets" emblazoned across the front and "Helga" where the player's name should go. It's bottle green and navy, two colors that look fantastic on me, which is why I'd insisted on paying a Galleon for it.

 _"What a waste," Winifred moans as she watches me pass over the coin. "A tee-shirt? Really Isabella?" You're better than that. You could be so much more fashionable than that."_

 _"Nah," Madison laughs through a mouthful of caldron corn. "Not our girl. She's tee-shirts and trainers all the way."_

 _"You're such a cake," I scoff, and turn to walk away from the merch table and back toward where Fayge is waiting patiently._

 _"Wait!" Madison calls, jogging slightly to catch up. "Who're you calling a cake? Because I just mounted a very brave defense of your honor, I think."_

 _"You did not!" Winifred cries in mock indignation while Fayge and I look on in helpless amusement. "With that complexion? That hair? Our Isabella was made for fine gowns and elegant robes… and trainers. I'm sorry darling," she tosses over her shoulder at me, "but you are a hazard in heels."_

 _At that we all laugh. She's not wrong._

Dad's still in the same spot I left him in when I come back downstairs. He looks like a statue, and a not very pleasant one at that. I have to call his name twice before he really hears me.

"D'you still want to do dinner?" I ask gently, when he looks up at me with pale, drawn features. I can't imagine what he's been thinking for the past hour. I'm afraid of it really, but I can tell by his carriage that our dinner conversation isn't just going to be a chat.

"Yeah, of course," He says gruffly, distractedly.

Once again I slip on my school oxfords and he dons his jacket. Dad's never felt the need to invest in a civilian vehicle and so we settle into the cruiser for the three-minute drive to the diner.

Forks is a small hamlet, located in the Northwestern portion of Washington. I can't say that I know much about it, aside from the fact that the majority of all of my time spent here has been under constant cloud cover. Dad seems to like living here well enough, he's got good friends that he always invites over when I'm home and he's always invited places on the weekend. When I was younger I used to imagine him coming to London, and we'd live together in a townhouse. Perhaps my mother would even live with us and we'd be a happy little family. As I grew older though, it became more and more difficult to imagine my Dad in anyplace other than Forks. Now when I think of him I think of the sleepy town square and the quiet woods behind the house and the river that he fishes in.

I'm not sure what I'll do here for three months. Honestly I haven't developed my plan much further than my initial gut feeling 'Go to Dad's'. Before I arrived, going to my father's house, leaving the isles of Britain for the coast of America seemed like such a solid way to begin forgetting about the past year of my life. Now though….

By the time we arrive at the dinner, Dad's not the only one a bit lost in his own head.

It's a startling awakening for me when the waitress squeals and rushes toward me with open arms. Incredibly, she remembers me from the last time I was in town, when I was "just a little wisp of a thing." I'm too stunned by the greeting to avoid her embrace and so she crushes me to her bosom and rocks us back and forth a few times. "Oh Miss Bella I remember you coming in here with your daddy for the first time, five years old! Poor man had you on his own for the first time and didn't know what to feed you! Oh and now look at you! You're a lady!"

I smile, a true awkward, embarrassed, full-flush-of-the-face smile that makes her chuckle at me and click her tongue and say something to Dad about watching out for those boys. Then she gestures us over to "our usual booth" and tells us she'll have the food right out. I have a strong sense that tonight I will be eating whatever I ordered last two years ago for dinner. That's okay though. There's a kind of comforting warmth that spreads over me from the mundane normalcy of it all.

The world might have gone to shit in the past two years, but Corra the diner waitress seems still to know exactly who I am and what I need.

 **Just so's you know... I live for reviews. Live. For. Them.**


	5. Chapter 5

I know the exact moment that Dad spots the scarring on the back of my hand. It's approximately thirty seconds before Corra brings out our food, a cheeseburger and chips for my dad and a garden burger and a little pot of fruit for me. His lips disappear beneath his mustache and his cheeks become so ruddy that I instantly worry he'll burst something. As it is, he doesn't even notice the plate being put before him and it's left to me to thank Corra profusely for the meals and to assure her that we don't need anything else for now, thank you. And despite her confusion and the obvious questioning looks she shoots me and tries to send my father's way, she simply nods and gets out of our way, giving us our privacy, bless her.

We sit silently for a full minute, his eyes bugging out of his head and trained resolutely on where I've pulled my hands beneath the table and out of his direct line of sight.

"Bells," He says, his voice dry and quiet, "will you tell me what happened?"

It's the saddest, most defeated I've ever heard anyone sound, and to hear it coming from my father slings an arrow straight through my heart.

'A lot's happened, Dad' I think to myself, and then I say it aloud because he might as well hear the whole of it now. I don't want to play some game where I feed him bits of information piece by piece. Part of me just wants to get it over with. Part of me just wants my father, my daddy to know what's happened to me, to cry over me the way I haven't quite been able to cry over myself.

"Gran died," I start, because that's the easiest place for it. That, at least, wasn't much of a shock when it happened. She had been 112 after all, and had gone in her sleep quite peacefully, before the war had even really started with any type of intensity. I had simply come home one August afternoon, three weeks before forth year, to find her in her armchair, her hand as cold as her tea. In a way it had been a blessing, to have her go. I hadn't had to worry about her the way I saw other students worrying over their families as the Prophet delivered increasingly darker news every morning.

"Gran died and-" _And I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to worry. Because I didn't want you to come to London. Because you're a muggle, and you couldn't have even helped me sort everything out anyway._ "And then everything went a bit to shit, to be honest," I say. "I dunno if we ever talked about it, but some dark things, some scary things were happening in my world when I last visited. And after gran died it got really bad."

Dad's gaze doesn't falter but his brow knits itself together slowly, as if he's trying to work out exactly what I'm getting at.

"There were a lot of attacks," I swallow, "and a lot of small… skirmishes, I suppose you could call them, between the… the light and the dark. But last summer is when it actually became a war, really." I see Dad start at this, but I soldier on, determined to get through the worst of it at once. "Our government was taken over by an evil man, the leader of those dark people. A lot happened. There were a great many people who were immediately put in danger by his… beliefs. He especially didn't like non-magical people, and any witch or wizard related to a non-magical person was targeted.

"You have to understand," I plead with him, as though he's mounting some kind of argument, "when someone controls our government they control our schools, our papers, our wireless, our transportation. Everything. So there wasn't anywhere for me to hide and there wasn't any way for me to contact you without being… being killed for it."

"But you were okay?" Dad asks, "You didn't contact me and the rest of your family is magical and you were at school so you were safe? You weren't hurt?" he pleads.

 _Damn_. _"_ It's difficult," I stutter. "Yes, I was at school, so I wasn't targeted directly by his men. No one shot spells at me in the streets or anything. But the man put some of his most loyal followers in charge of the school and let them know that they should punish as they saw fit. And they saw fit on a wide range of issues and in a creative number of ways." I know I sound bitter but it's hard for me not to be when it comes to the Carrows. I had been quite proud to escape Umbridge's blood quill my third year, when she was in the throws of handing out detentions to suspected D.A. members left and right. I hadn't been so fortunate with the Carrow twins however, and as luck would have it, they'd obviously communicated with Madam Umbridge about the best forms of discipline.

 _"I think you'll do lines," Alecto Carrow chuckles gleefully, and she places a quill, a very familiar black quill on the desk before me. "Perhaps you'd best write 'I must learn respect.'"_

 _I don't dare roll my eyes, and instead set to writing. It doesn't matter what infraction I've committed, my lines for Carrow are always the same. 'I must learn respect.' It wouldn't do to muddy the words by having me write different lines on top of each other, after all. The point of this punishment is to create a legible scar, so that everyone knows what you've done and where you've lacked. 'I must learn respect.' At least it isn't something truly awful about blood status or the dark lord. I've seen those scars and they're hard to have staring back at you on a daily basis. 'I must learn respect.' At least my penmanship has become truly impeccable._

I bring my hands back up to rest on the table, so that my dad can see the scar, can know that really and truly I'm okay.

"What's it say?" he asks.

"Oh yeah," I say, almost surprised, "I suppose it would be rather hard to read from that angle. It says 'I must learn respect.'"

"Why… why did it happen?"

"Because my third year I joined a rebellion and last year we were a bit… dangerous in our own right." I grin, thinking of how the D.A. had grown from a little dissatisfied student group into a proper army. "We fancied ourselves soldiers and when the time came, we were."

For a moment Dad's silent, but his face grows red and redder again. "I don't know what that means Bella, what does that mean?" he almost growls.

"The final battle of the war took place at our school, Dad. And the army I was part of fought in it. We fought, and we won. But um," I fight back the few tears that have started together automatically on my lash line, as they tend to when I think of – "umm, a lot of people got hurt. And a few died. Friends of mine."

"When," he asks, "When did this happen?" and I wonder if he's calculating how long I've kept it from him. How long I've lied by omission.

"I got out of the hospital this morning," I say quietly. "And I'd been there for about three and a half weeks."

He sucks in a breath at that, and I'm not really sure what more I can say, and so I don't say anything more at all.

When Corra comes by our table again, to see how we're doing, Dad asks for the check, and I ask for to-go boxes. Neither of us have touched our food.

 **Thank you lovely people for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6 Interlude: Charlie

Charlie Swan is not known for overt emotional displays. Sure, he cracks a smile when he sees Mrs. Callahan every time she comes to the station to report her stolen yard flamingos. He cheers as loud as anyone when the Mariners score a homer. Hi might have even shed a tear at Billy's kid Jake's kindergarten graduation.

When it comes to his daughter, of course, all bets are off. Charlie cried when he held her for the first time, just three days old and all red and wriggling. He cried again when he had to return to Washington and leave little Bella behind. He rejoiced at every picture sent, especially the funny magical ones that moved and cooed up at him. He read and reread every letter sent to him by Morgana, not the mother of his child but the grandmother. Charlie Swan agonized over whether or not to seek custody of his daughter when he found out Renee had left her behind and had sobbed (yes, again) when he'd come to the heart wrenching decision to let her grow up in a world that understood her. He panicked at her first display of accidental magic the Thanksgiving of the year she turned five when she floated her way down the stairs and broke an arm in the crash landing. He looked into her brown eyes, the ones that mirrored his exactly, and told her he was so very very proud of her when she got her letter for magic school while she was at _his_ house (he'd always felt very grateful about that, that he could have this one milestone).

With all that, Charlie Swan has never had those serious conversations with his daughter that maybe some fathers, fathers more in touch with their emotions, fathers closer to their children, have. The ones where he might tell her how he met her mother, or how to deal with relationships and feelings, or about why bad things sometimes happen to good people. Maybe it was because he'd thought little Bells was too young for those things (barely fourteen the last time he'd seen her) or maybe it was because he'd been afraid.

Now, as he pulls his cruiser onto the yard, he thinks about all the conversations he'd always feared having, and how none of them even covered what he was feeling now, what had happened to her.

What happened to his baby girl, the little wriggly thing he'd caught a last minute flight to meet, the unsteady toddler that used the kitchen cabinets as handholds to get around for two weeks the summer she was two, the ten year old girl he'd taught to score baseball games. What happened to her is too horrific for him to comprehend.

She'd talked about war crimes, he thinks dumbly as he shuts off his engine. She'd talked about battles and dead kids her own age, kids who were her friends.

He unlocks his front door and hangs up his jacket and he watches her toe off her shoes and he wonders if the reason she's wearing her school shoes and a school skirt is because she doesn't have any of her things anymore. He wonders if they were lost or taken is that why she only came with a duffle?

"D'you…d'you want to watch TV?" Her lilting voice penetrates through the sound of blood rushing in his ears and she speaks hesitantly and Charlie wonders if it's because she's afraid of him now. Has something made her afraid of him?

But no, he looks at her, at her wide brown eyes and her pale face and her dark hair and realizes that she's just gauging his reaction, waiting to follow his mood. So he nods and sits in his chair.

She fumbles with the remote a bit, as though she doesn't quite remember what it's for and what all the buttons do but she gets it eventually and she finds a game to watch, Oakland against Texas, top of the first.

And so, after receiving probably the second most horrifying news a father can get (oh god, he thinks, would I ever've found out about it if she died) Charlie Swan watches baseball with his baby girl. He watches baseball and he wonders what he can say, what he should say.

Hours pass, the game ends, and still he wonders. Bells goes up to bed after they switch off the TV and mutter goodnights and I love yous to each other and he's still thinking about what he can possibly say to make everything better when the screaming starts.

If Charlie Swan didn't feel helpless in the diner, he certainly did when Bells starts screaming. He tears up the stairs, down the hall and into her bedroom and finds her thrashing around in the middle of the bed. Every light in her room is on, lit up almost preternaturally bright. She writhes, fighting the sheets and comforter around her and as she does it her shirt rides up.

She's still screaming but all Charlie can do is look at the skin that's just been revealed. It's her back, he's sure of that, but it doesn't look like a back anymore. It looks like an unholy mountain range, like someone pulled twisted purple ropes underneath her skin and left them there in some places, like someone took to her with a jagged ice cream scoop in other places. And there, where her back turns into fleshy side is a perfect set of teeth marks.

It takes a minute for him to be able to hear the screams again, but when he does, he leaps into action, pulling blankets off of her, his little girl. At his touch she starts awake and lets out a final piercing shriek, recoiling away from him like he's got fire in his fingertips.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he mutters frantically, taking a step back and holding his hands up like a surrender.

In bed, she's saying the same thing. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she says over and over again, gasping out the words. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to." She turns to look at him, her face waxy and drawn, the smell of sweat and fear in the air.

"It's okay babygirl," Charlie finds himself saying, and he sits down on the mattress, pulling her to him with strong, sure arms. "You're okay now. You're okay now. I've got you."

After the crying calms a bit, he asks, "You wanna tell me what it was about?"

She shakes her head tiredly, "I get them sometimes. Not every night, I promise."

"I don't care about that." He says firmly, "I just want to help you. I just want you to feel safe." Another minute or two is all it takes for him to summon the courage to say what needs to be said next. "Bells, honey, I don't mean to pry. But when you were thrashing around I got a look at your back—"

She sits up suddenly and the glint of wild, animal fear is back in her eye. "You're safe, I promise," she blurts, "Daddy I swear you're safe. He was human when he attacked me, and they kept me at St. Mungo's long enough to be sure. I won't transform Daddy, I promise."

"What?" His face is blank but his mind is racing. What on earth does she mean?

"The werewolf that attacked me," Bella's saying, and once again it's like they're communicating in the middle of an ocean, "He wasn't transformed at the time. He was a werewolf but it wasn't the full moon and so he wasn't a _wolf._ I know it looks bad," she shutters, "but I'm absolutely not infected. I'm not a werewolf. You're safe."

He wants to laugh. He wants to die laughing right then and there, die choking on his own hysterical mirth so that he doesn't have to live in this world a second longer. He wants to scream too. To break things. He wants to shake her and shout _'That's not what I meant! That's not what I was asking'_

Instead he cries. He grabs Bells and clutches her to him and he sobs, his tears catching in her hair, his body shaking so hard that the bed shakes too. "Oh Bells," he gasps, "Oh Bells, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And he says it over and over again. How sorry he is. How he wishes he could have protected her. How he just wants her to be safe and happy and whole. How goddamned sorry he is.

Later, after Bella's fallen back asleep, after he's removed himself from her room and stumbled back downstairs, he walks outside. He wants to scream. Probably though that would wake the neighbors. Probably it would give Bells a panic attack. Probably it would get his own deputies called on him. So instead he takes a baseball bat that he keeps in the hall closet, one that he once tried to teach Bella to swing, and goes to the front yard, where the large pine tree that Bells fell out of when she was nine is.

He can't kill the fucker _that fucker_ that attacked his daughter. But he can swing a bat. And he can hit a tree. So he does. He gives a guttural grunt every time his bat connects, harmonizing with the staccato _thunk_ of connection. He imagines that he's bashing in a skull. He imagines that he's breaking bones. He imagines a werewolf is begging for mercy. Charlie Swan knows no mercy, shows no mercy.

 **Oof. Periodically there'll be moments of this story that I think need to be told from a perspective other than Bella's and I'll label them as 'Interludes' up in the chapter section. This was just the first of many. Let me know what you think!**


	7. Chapter 7

I wake up, breathing hard and quick, to dim light filtering in through my bedroom window and the sound of low murmuring coming from downstairs. For a moment I lie still, flat on my back, letting my breaths slow and even.

The murmuring continues. From the corner of my eye I spy my wand on the bedside table. It would be so easy to pick it up and give it a wave. One spell and I'd be albe to hear everything being said in the kitchen. But that would be wrong, I think, and not very sporting besides. Best to listen from the top of the stairs, like a common muggle, I grin to myself.

Even sitting on the very top step it's difficult to make out exact words. My dad's gruff bass is intermixed with a smooth and sharp baritone. As quietly as possible I bump my rear down three more steps, just to the point where I know I still can't be seen.

"Will she be staying with you from now on?" The stranger's voice asks. I hold my breath. Of course they're talking about me.

"I dunno," dad says distractedly. "We haven't really talked about it. She's been at the same school in Scotland for the past five years though. It's a boarding school, so I guess it makes a lot of sense for her to go back." A beat of silence and then a heavy sigh. "Doc, I don't know what to do. What do I say? How do I tell her…"

"You tell her you love her," the man, Doc, replies. "You tell her you'll always be here when she wants to talk, that you'll always listen to her and that you'll believe whatever she tells you." My dad must have shot him some kind of look, probably wondering what this Doc knew of my situation, because he quickly offers an explanation, "A lot of people, young girls especially, I've found, are afraid that their loved ones will not believe them, when they talk about traumas they've experienced. It's a common fear, and one that you will need to address and continue addressing until she believes it. What she needs from you, Charlie, is validation. She needs to know that you believe her, and that you're not judging her or her actions or her reactions. It's all you can do, sometimes." Doc sounds sad at this. I feel my hands shake a bit too, to be honest. How can he know?

"Huh." Dad grunts. For a moment there's silence again, and I wonder if that's the end of the conversation. "I just feel so out of my depth, ya'know? I haven't seen her in two years and in that time… God, everything has happened. I don't even know where she was last summer, Doc. Her grandmother died weeks after the last time I saw her, so where was she staying during school holidays? What… what could I have done? What's happened to her that she hasn't told me about? What she's told me about makes me absolutely furious, so mad I could just-" Dad lets out a short, sharp laugh. "She showed up on my doorstep with a duffle bag. I don't even know what happened to her stuff. What's she brought with her? What does she need? I don't know, I just don't know." I picture him throwing his arms in the air, in a sort of surrender.

"You'll drive yourself crazy thinking like that, Charlie," Doc advises. "But I'll tell you what, if it's okay with you I'll give Alice, she's my youngest, you know, about your daughter's age, your number and I'll have her call. There's nothing Alice loves more than having someone to shop for, I'm sure she'd be able to help Isabella find what she doesn't already have."

"Yeah?"

"Of course. Alice is a little insulated. All of the children are. It will be good for her to make a new friend."

The sound of chairs scraping against linoleum signals the real end of the conversation and I watch my dad walk the stranger past the foot of the stairs and to the front door. He's younger looking than someone I pictured my dad confiding in, and a lot more clean shaven than most of the deputies and fishing buddies I've met. If anyone, I'd figured that dad would talk to Uncle Billy, his oldest and best friend and my uncle in every way that counts. From beyond the scope of my vision I hear casual goodbyes and the front door open and close.

What Doc said gives me a lot to think about, not only because now I know that Dad's got way more questions than the few he's already asked me. I wonder how much was said before I woke up, how much Dad actually told Doc and how much in turn he'd feel the need to share with his daughter.

I also have a think on what Doc said about me just needing Dad to believe me. In a way, I suppose that one bit of advice is especially true in my case. I can tell my dad that I was in a magical war, that it was illegal for me to contact him, that I was attacked by a werewolf, and tortured by dark wizards but in the end it really is down to him to believe me or not. I think about what would happen if he didn't believe me, if he just stands up one day and says, "this sounds like a lot of rubbish." Objectively he'd be dead wrong but I can't say that it wouldn't smart a bit.

On a deeper level though, I think I might need him to believe me in a different way. I think I might need him to say, "It's true, the things that happened to you were bad and wrong, and you have every right to be sad and scared and have nightmares and act like a crazy person." Maybe that's the kind of belief that Doc was referring to, not a "don't argue the facts" belief but a "don't argue the emotions" belief in me. It's true. That really is what I need. Over and over again until I actually believe it.

From the bottom of the staircase Dad looks up at me, his brown eyes finding mine. "I love you, Bells," he says, putting everything he isn't saying into the sentiment.

"I love you too dad," I say, and I put an awful lot into it too.

 **Thanks for reading, friends!**


	8. Chapter 8

After my shower, which is just as luxurious as the last one, even if it is much shorter, I take stock of my clothing.

Dad wasn't wrong to express concern about what all I might have. The fact of the matter is that I've never owned much in the way of muggle clothing. While kids at Hogwarts tend to dress a bit more modernly than the previous generation, most of us wear a mix of muggle clothes and wizarding robes with an emphasis on the robes for those of us raised in especially conservative households.

Most of my muggle clothing in the past consisted of items I'd bought while here in Washington, or in anticipation of my visits here, and for years I'd simply kept the clothes in my closet at Dad's house. A quick perusal of the closet rack tells me that absolutely nothing will fit me, however. I've grown in the past two years, both vertically and horizontally, as it were, and the only things that come close are a set of two flannel shirts that Dad bought specifically for me to fish in, so that I wouldn't get my clothing dirty.

Adding the two shirts, which are hardly summer appropriate, to what is packed in my duffle bag brings me to a grand total of two non-uniform skirts and a single pair of pajama pants, five ratty band tee shirts, two quidditch jerseys, three sets of underwear, five socks, and a single solitary non-uniform jumper. Additionally I have with me a school skirt, school trousers, three white collared shirts, a tie, a sweater vest, a Ravenclaw jumper, a set of school robes, and two sets of everyday and dress robes each. In other words, the situation is rather dire. In a pinch, some of the school clothing can pass as muggle but no matter how I dress it up it's still obviously part of some private school uniform.

I sigh and redress in my sleep pants and another band shirt, this time from a concert Winifred and I went to Easter hols of fourth year. The group is called Smashing Banshees. It's all hard and fast guitar and quick-fingered keyboard solos and lyrics that make you feel like you've just swallowed a befuddlement potion. Madison and Fayge absolutely hate their sound and refused to come with us and so we'd gone all by ourselves and had a fabulous time. Winifred had found a boy to dance with, of course. Even though she was the youngest in our room and therefore only fourteen at the time of the concert she seemed to have a way with boys that didn't come as easily to the rest of us. For my part I'd stayed by her side, single but not looking for company, and enjoyed the music and her sweet laughter.

I braid back my hair, put on a pair of fluffy socks I find in a drawer, and stick my wand through the braid at the crown of my head.

Downstairs dad is seated at the kitchen table, reading the sports section of his newspaper and muttering about the Mariners. We both seem content to forget the fact that he caught me eavesdropping on his conversation not forty-five minutes ago.

I set about gathering what I need for cereal, a muggle breakfast item that I'd never particularly cared for before and certainly do not esteem very highly now. A bowl from this cabinet. A spoon from that drawer. A box of what are dubiously named "Oaty Ohs" from the pantry. I can't bring myself to pour milk on top of them, soggy oaty ohs are more than my delicate magical gag reflex can take, and so I eat them dry, at first with a spoon and then with just my fingers like a savage.

From behind his paper, I see Dad take a gander at the process and I notice his mustache twitching at me in amusement.

"You know the food situation in this house is truly barbaric." I say lightly, concentrating on scooping oaty ohs out of my bowl.

"You just feel free to do the grocery shopping this week if you want sump'n different than what you see," Dad grumbles out from behind baseball stats.

"Would that I knew what a grocery was," I mourn, somewhat facetiously, "Or how to shop for one. In one? At one? Oh well." I scoop the last three oaty ohs into my open mouth and look up in time to see Dad looking at me as though I've sprouted another head. "I do know what a grocery is, Dad." I say, but again, that's only somewhat true. In concept I know that that is where food comes from in a general, muggle sense, but I've never actually seen one, or shopped at one.

I hop down from the counter in order to rinse my bowl out. "So what are we doing today?" I ask casually. Really I'm hoping he'll say 'We're staying in, watching television, and perhaps getting groceries.' As little as I slept last night I could use some time today to nap and put away my things. I'd like to make my room a little bit more homey and less like a guest room with all of my childhood paintings tacked to the walls.

Dad looks up at me semi-guiltily, "Well I've got to go into the station for at least an hour or two, just to make sure everyone's running what they should. And… uh… you might be getting a phone call from Alice Cullen sometime today, inviting you to go shopping with her."

"Oh?" I merely lift an eyebrow.

"Yeah I mentioned to her father, Carlisle, that you hadn't been in town for a while, and might could use some company and he volunteered to give her the house number. They're a good family, the Cullens. Moved here from Alaska last August. I think the kids are around your age, maybe just a little older." Charlie puts down his paper and rubs the back of his neck, which is rapidly turning red along with his ears. "Alice is the baby of the family. According to him she's looking for a friend just as much as you are. You might be good for one another." He pauses for a moment and says quietly, "Just give her a chance, won't you Bells?"

I don't bother to correct him about the whole 'looking for a new friend' thing, which I really am not. Then again, three months with nothing to do in my father's house and no one to talk to but him could get very old, very fast. A replacement friend I certainly did not need, but someone to at least talk to on a day-to-day, casual basis might be nice. And I certainly needed to go shopping.

"Just remember Bells," Dad says, and I start, realizing that he's once again talking to me, "if the phone rings while I'm gone it's okay to pick it up. Speak clearly but don't shout. The people on the other end of the line can hear you just fine without needing to scream at them."

He says this because once when I was seven I'd picked up the phone and, not fully understanding how such a device could possibly work, shouted at poor Uncle Billy, who had only been trying to ask us over for a fish fry at his place. I had only been more confused by Dad's explanation that the telephone helped him communicate with people not in the room, especially people far away. Neither man had ever let me live it down.

Now I roll my eyes. "I know how to use a telephone, Dad."

"You say that now," he mutters, before puttering off to get ready for work.

 **Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! Y'all make my day!**


	9. Chapter 9

With Dad gone to the station I find that the hours of the day pass rather slowly, and that each drags on just a bit longer than the one before. I organize my room, putting away clothing and hanging up pictures and just in general making it look less like a child's bedroom.

Around one o'clock Dad calls the house to let me know he'd actually be staying at work a bit longer than expected, as something involving a wild animal has just come up. I say that that is alright by me and before he hangs up he asks if I'd like to eat our diner leftovers from last night for dinner tonight or if I'd like him to pick something else up. I tell him to pick something else up, because I've already eaten the diner leftovers for lunch, both his and mine (I'd been extra hungry from not having dinner last night, I reason).

That night he brings home Chinese takeout, which is a genuinely nice surprise and we eat it on the couch while we watch baseball and agree that, Merlin love them, the Seattle Mariners are the worst team in the history of the sport.

Aside from Dad's call, the phone doesn't ring once.

The next three days proceed in a similar fashion, with Dad leaving shortly after breakfast and arriving home just before dinner with some form of carry-out. I organize and re-organize my dresser drawers, find and learn how to use and accidentally break a vacuum cleaner, and discover that golf is not my sport of choice. On days that there are no leftovers I eat oaty ohs twice, for breakfast and for lunch, and I actually grow familiar enough with the texture and flavor to find them mildly tasty.

And not once does the telephone ring.

By my fifth day at home I am practically chewing on the carpets out of sheer boredom. I, I decide, would do just about anything to escape this house and the mind numbing routine I've developed while inside of it.

It is exactly at that moment that the telephone rings.

It rings once. It rings twice. It starts to ring a third time when I realize with a start that I need to actually pick it up or else the ansafone will turn on and I don't even know what to do with that particular piece of technology.

"Hello?" My voice is hesitant, and probably too quiet for the person on the other line to hear. But someone does answer.

"Hello!" Alice Cullen's voice is shimmery, like a wind chime, and comes across the line beautifully and clearly. "This is Alice Cullen," she says, as if I didn't already know, "I got this number from my father! Apparently he spoke to your father a few days ago and your father told my father that you might want to go shopping with me? That you might need all new clothes?" Her pealing voice is infectiously happy.

I, conversely, sound like cak. "Um… yes?" I stutter inelegantly.

My lack of apparent graces doesn't seem to phase the bright voice though, and instead Alice barrels ahead. "I was thinking that maybe I could come and pick you up from your house and together we could look at what you already have? And then we could go back to my house and look at what I have. You know, so that you can get an idea for fashions you'd like and such. I know that there are some major" and she pronounces the word like it is the most vital thing she has ever said, " _major_ fashion differences between here and the UK. And maybe once you get an idea of what you want we could go to some stores! I've already put together a list of exactly what every girl needs to succeed, clothes, accessories, toiletries, the like and so we can just pick it all up at once!" She finally pauses for a breath, or perhaps to let me answer.

I want to come up with something to say, something that will show that I have a relatively high IQ and an equally high understanding of human interaction but honestly the entire one-sided conversation that has just taken place between Alice and I has left me in the dust. All I can say is, "Okay," as dumbly as a toad. Give her the chance, Dad had said. Well okay, I'll give Alice Cullen a chance.

"Oh wonderful!" Once again, Alice acts as though my lack of response in no way affects her at all. "I was thinking we could meet today? Maybe twenty minutes? I'm just so excited to meet you! Oh and dress you! We're going to have so much fun together! This is going to be a thrill, I promise!"

I'm not sure who she's making her promise to, but her absolute enthusiasm has finally won me over and awoken something friendly within me. "Sure," I smile, "Twenty minutes would be great. Do you have my address?"

"Oh yes!" Alice replies immediately and with surety. "Oh Bella, we are going to have so much fun together!"

 **Alice! It's Alice! I love Alice and Bella's friendship, and I hope you like how it unfolds in this story as much as I do! Also, just a head's up, I'm going out of town for spring break for the next few days, so I'm sorry if chapters don't get posted as regularly as they have for the past week or so. I've already gotten them written, it's just a matter of getting to a computer once a day to post! So we'll see. Just be patient! Also, review!**


	10. Chapter 10

I know that there's something otherworldly about Alice Cullen from the moment she steps out of her shiny yellow automobile and onto the sidewalk. Her features are dainty, elfin even, in that she has large eyes and a pointy nose and chin. All about her is a sort of glow, certainly something that would only be visible to someone magical or someone with an extreme eye for detail and a weak grasp on muggle perceived reality. When she notices me in the window she smiles a sweet, sharp-toothed looking smile and waves at me.

I can tell she's not human but my grandmother taught me to never be so rude as to ask another being what exactly they were if I couldn't figure it out myself, and so I merely invite her inside with a polite, much less pointy smile of my own.

Before I even saw her I'd been prepared for us to feel hideously awkward around each other, after all we're two teenagers basically attending a play-date set up by our fathers. Alice dispels that notion almost immediately. "Isabella, hello!" the short, dark haired sprite dances her way through the front door, removing her raincoat as she does. Her smile is so wide and her odd, golden eyes so bright that it's infectious. I feel like her happiness is warming me up from the outside in. "It's so good to meet you!"

"And you as well," I stutter, suddenly feeling ridiculously underdressed next to Alice's polished denims and flowing chiffon top.

I feel her eyes rake over me, from my messily thrown up hair to my Montrose Magpies jersey that's tucked into a long black tea skirt, and I prepare myself to be judged. Alice merely smiles wider, which I didn't think was possible, and reaches for my hand, clasping it between her two icy ones. "You and I are going to be very good friends," she says. "I can just tell."

Part of me wants to shake her off, tell her that I've made a mistake, that she needs to go home. I don't need new friends, just the ones I had before the war, thanks. But I don't. I hold firm, nod to let her know that I think the same, and smile. Sure, we'll be friends. I will give her a chance, just like I told my dad I would.

"I hope this isn't too forward," She says, and I tense, because that's something that someone says just before they say something horrifyingly forward, "But I was told that you're going through a tough time right now. I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry. Of course I don't know what happened but…" She shakes her head as though clearing her thoughts, "Well if I say anything, or overstep you'll tell me, wont' you? My siblings tell me that I can get a bit carried away sometimes." She looks up at me with wide, beseeching golden eyes.

I swallow. "Of course," I say, and then I search for something else. Something to take the tension away. "Don't feel the need to tiptoe around me though. I'm a big girl," I smile.

Alice gives a tinkling laugh. "You, Isabella Swan, are a vision. Exactly what I need in my life." She pulls away from me and begins walking toward the stairs. "Shall we get started?" She barely turns her head to look at me before continuing up; apparently she doesn't need my help to find my room.

I follow her up the stairs and down the hall to my room, where I've already laid out all of the muggle clothing I own. It forms a pathetically small pile on my bed and I almost start to feel embarrassed until I catch Alice's smile, which is not at all vicious but instead rather anticipatory.

"Show me what you have!"

I take her through the piles. Underwear first, and hurriedly so that hopefully she wont see how sad and worn out it is. Then my tee shirts, which thankfully span a nice spectrum of colors but do not do anything to dispel the idea that I'm hopelessly unfashionable. Next come jerseys and flannels, then the other skirt, sleep pants, and socks.

"Hmm," Alice hums, tilting her head to the side as she studies me and my meager supply. "Describe to me your personal style."

"Comfortable," I say automatically, because that's what I'd always seen myself as. Nothing to fancy, and nothing overly restricting, but I didn't mind if comfort intersected with what was stylish or trendy.

For a minute Alice is silent, contemplative. "No," she says. "I don't think so." Once again she glances over what I'm wearing now. "I mean I'm sure that you value comfort in your clothing. But if you really were a comfy dresser I think you'd own more pairs of jeans and really baggy shirts. No," she looks thoughtful, "I think you're classic. Flowing skirts and tucked in blouses."

I don't know how to tell her that I've never found trousers completely comfortable, as most of them tend to be tailored to fit tightly. Other than that though, she's not wrong and so I don't dispute the declaration.

"Anyway, I brought something that might help us," Alice says, and she pulls a folded piece of paper out of her back pocket. "It's a list of everything you'll need. Do you have a pen?"

Out of the corner of my eye, as I search for a pen, I see that the piece of paper has lots of writing on it, organized by categories. It looks very, almost intimidatingly, long.

"Now you already have some of this," Alice says as she goes through the list, checking some items off and crossing others out. "And some of it, like the blazers and the evening gown, I assume you wont actually need. But it's a good place to start. Will you be here for the winter?"

"Um, no, I'll be going back to school the last week of August," I say dumbly, watching Alice cross yet more items off of her list.

"That's to bad," she says absentmindedly, "It would be so nice to have a friend at school. Oh well," she smiles at me, "that just means we'll have to make the most out of our summer, won't we? Take a look at this list Isabella, and tell me what you think."

I think, as I peruse the paper, that it's more muggle clothing than I've ever owned in my life combined. I'm not sure what constitutes a day dress, or what activewear even is, but Alice has that and more written down in tiny, looping cursive.

"This is… quite a lot." I feel a bit overwhelmed.

"I know it seems that way, but really it's the essentials. And we can eliminate even more, based on your personal style. The point is just to have a variety of working, stylish outfits that you'll actually wear." It seems like Alice knows what she's doing, and so I let the topic drop for now. "I actually really love the shirts you have," She comments as she steps toward the bed and brushes one hand along them.

"I'm rather fond of them," I smile, "They're all from things I went to with my schoolmates. Concerts and qu-Football games."

"Normally I abhor tee shirts," Alice wrinkles her nose, in a way that is highly reminiscent of Winifred, "But the way that you're pairing yours today with that skirt just looks so… classy."

I blush, as I always do when someone gives me a complement. "So what now? You've seen how pathetically little I own."

Alice's brow wrinkles at that complement, but she manages to school her expression quickly. "Now we go to my house, and my closet. You and I look to be about the same size, aside from height and bust, so perhaps you can try on some of the things in my closet, just to see if you like any of the styles."

This seems to be as good a plan as any, so we adjourn downstairs and I slip on my oxfords while Alice dons her jacket. Seeing me without one, she asks "Do you have a rain coat?"

I shake my head with a rueful smile, "Add it to the list of things I haven't got."

"You might want to borrow one of your dad's," She says, glancing out the window. "It's going to rain later."

"D'you have a bit of the sight Madam Alice?" I tease as I do as she says and fish one out of the hall closet.

Her pealing laughter startles me. "Goodness no," She giggles, "But when you live in Forks long enough you just get a feel for these things."

 **Tell me what you think!**


	11. Chapter 11

"You know, Isabella," Alice says as she turns the wheel to guide her automobile out of the residential part of town and onto the highway, "You've got more clothing than I did when I arrived at the Cullen's."

I feel a jolt of confusion and guilt at the admission from the well-dressed nymph next to me. Confusion because weren't the Cullens her family? Guilt because I'd complained about what I had, which was more than she'd started out with, apparently.

"I don't say that to make you feel bad or anything," Alice hurriedly corrects, "Just to let you know that I've also had to completely rebuild my wardrobe from the ground up. In fact pretty much everyone in my family has. We're all foster children," She explains at my confused expression. "We each came to Carlisle and Esme's home with pretty much what was on our backs. So I understand, to an extent."

"I'm sorry," I say, not really sure what else can be said. "I didn't know."

"Oh it's alright," Alice chuckles, "It's all the gossip of the town, of course. A young couple with five adopted teenagers wags a lot of tongues. That's part of why none of us really have friends in town."

"Only part?"

Alice smiles ruefully, "The other part is a bit more difficult to explain," she says carefully. "And much more scandalous, of course."

"It's alright if you don't want to tell me," I say hurriedly. After all, there are plenty of things I won't be telling her.

"No, no, it's okay," she glances over at me for a second before returning her eyes to the road. "We're friends, which means you'll be over at the house a lot, right? You should know." She takes a deep breath. "My foster brother and sister, Emmett and Rosalie are in a relationship. And I'm dating Rosalie's twin brother Jasper. None of us are blood related, of course. What's more, we didn't even really grow up together. Edward was adopted first as an infant, he's Esme's nephew. Then I came, when I was about, I dunno, six or so. Emmett was next when he was ten; Edward and I were nine and eight, respectively. Rosalie and Jasper didn't come to live with us until they were fourteen and by then it wasn't really like getting a new sibling, more like just having friends who slept over all the time. But…" She looks at me sadly, "Small towns talk, I suppose."

"Hmm," I take a moment to digest this new information. On the surface, I can see why the people of Forks went mad with the scandal. Siblings' dating each other is a bit icky. As a witch raised in Pureblood society though, where marriages frequently take place between first cousins, I'm not sure I have any room to judge. Aside from that, none of the Cullens were actually blood related, and the ones who had been brought up together weren't dating. From that perspective, is it really any different from, say, housemates at Hogwarts dating each other? After all, we lived together for nine months out of the year, slept in bedrooms next to each other, and took all of our meals together the way siblings might.

"What are you thinking?"

I glance quickly over at Alice, realizing that she's been watching me nervously out of the corner of her eye while I logicked my way through the situation she'd gifted me with. "I was just thinking about how your situation doesn't sound much different from me going to boarding school," I say honestly, "My school starts at age eleven and goes until age seventeen or eighteen, depending on where your birthday falls and for nine months out of the year all of us live together, take classes together, eat and sleep together. And relationships are rather commonplace," I say, matter-of-factly.

It takes Alice a minute to process what I've just said. "Huh." She gesticulates finally. "Now that's a way I've never thought of it."

The driveway we pull into is long and cuts directly through the thick forest that grows all along the highway. For a moment all I can see is green, a thick luscious green that surrounds us on all sides and then suddenly it retreats and we're in a large clearing at the center of which is an enormous house.

Alice hears my intake of breath at the sight and smiles over at me. "It's a bit much, I know. But it's home."

"It's lovely." I say. And it really is. The house is modern and open, a breathtaking mix of wood, steel, concrete, and glass like nothing I've ever seen in the magical or muggle worlds alike. I can't even imagine what it must be like to live in a place that more resembles a work of art than it does a home.

Alice pulls past the house and into a long garage out back, parking her little yellow car alongside other, equally shiny and well taken care of vehicles.

"Just so you're prepared," Alice warns, "Everyone is at home right now and they're not… used to visitors. So don't be to alarmed if they all converge on you at once."

"You make it sound like we're wading into enemy territory." I raise my eyebrows.

"Close but not quite," Alice giggles.

Before the words completely leave her mouth a figure appears in the mouth of the garage, a mountain of a figure with dark, close cropped hair.

"Speaking of the sharks circling…" Alice mutters, "That's Emmett. The big lug probably couldn't wait for us to make it into the house before cornering you. He's got impulse control issues. Patience issues. I swear Esme and Carlisle tried their best with him but there's only so much that you can do to undo years of being raised by baboons. Just remember…"

"Right," I say as I step out of the car, "Sharks. Don't let them smell blood."

Alice gives me a sharp look but Emmett throws back his head and gives a foundation shaking guffaw. "Oh I like her," he laughs, "she's a smart cookie."

He thrusts his hand out to me, intending to shake my hand, I suspect, but all I can see is an arm as thick as a tree trunk and a hand that could wrap around my throat with fingers overlapped.

I rock back on my heals, not a leap backwards or anything that might offset my balance and be too overtly defensive, but a move that both gets me away from him and drops my center of gravity, which theoretically would make me harder to knock over were anyone to try. Nobody does though, and Emmett merely drops his hand sheepishly.

"Nice to meet you," he grins with a smile as sharp as his sister's. Like I predicted, Emmett Cullen shares the same predatory teeth, golden eyes, and pale skin as his sister and, I suspect, the rest of his family. I'd be willing to bet that they all also share the same preternatural glow I've glanced about Alice and now Emmett. It's as I first instinctually guessed. The Cullens are not human, not entirely at least. That thought makes the dark thing in the back of my head stir.

"Pleasure," I grin, demonstrating that I'm at ease, not at all as frightened as my move might have demonstrated minutes ago. "I'm Isabella."

"Isabella, whew, that's a mouthful for such a tiny person. You ever thought about shorting that? Alice's real name is Mary Alice and she whittled it down to fit her height."

"Emmett that's rude," I hear Alice growl.

"'S alright," I say, feeling more at ease by the minute. "My father calls me Bella and occasionally so do my friends." Only part of that statement is true. Dad's always called me Bella or Bells but the wizarding world has only ever known me as Isabella. Very occasionally my roommates call me Belle. I didn't mind if the Cullens took up a nickname though. It didn't much matter, anyway. Three more months and Isabella would return to Hogwarts.

"British Bella," Emmett grins. "I like it. It's got a certain… ring. Get it?" he waggles his eyebrows at me and I snort inelegantly.

Alice rolls her eyes. Hard. "Okay Emmett. You've met her before anyone else. Now get out of our way. We've got business to attend to."

She strides past him, checking him with her shoulder as she goes, though unsurprisingly he doesn't seem to feel it. I do a little jog to catch up with her. Alice might be shorter than I, but she moves surprisingly far and fast with each step.

The back door of the house is open and just through it I spy a lovely, pale woman with caramel hair and an anticipatory expression watching us walk toward her.

"Mom!" Alice exclaims as she steps through the door and hugs the woman. When Alice's mother drops a kiss on the top of her head it's like a Renaissance painting has just been staged before my eyes and something in my chest clenches. The moment passes though and the woman looks to me as I step through the doorway.

"Darling Isabella!" She greets me, "We are so glad to have you here. Alice has been looking forward to this for days." She offers me a single pale, delicate hand and unlike with Emmett I take it immediately. It's ice cold, to the point of making my skin feel like it's afire. "I'm Esme Cullen, Alice's mother. And you met Emmett in the garage, though something tells me he didn't introduce himself." Esme playfully glares at the giant as he steps through the door and drops a kiss on her temple.

"Ah mom," he wheedles, "I knew Alice'd already introduced me."

"Even so…" Esme protests as Emmett bounds away, further into the house. "Are you hungry dear?" she turns back to me.

"Only if she can take it up to my room with me," Alice says briskly. "We've gotta shake a leg if we want to do any shopping today!"

"A sandwich then?" Esme suggests, and she starts walking toward the open kitchen.

"Okay," I follow after her. I'm not about to turn down a meal that consists of more than take out and oaty ohs, after all.

In the kitchen, standing near a set of cabinets and looking like a model for Witch Weekly, is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen. I'm tempted to say she's a Veela but her hair is less silver and more golden. Her facial features are strong, with a long nose and full, pouty lips. As I walk in her golden eyes flash at me and for the first time I'm greeted with hostility.

"Oh Rosalie, dear, this is Isabella," Esme introduces us even as she opens the refrigerator and begins searching for sandwich ingredients.

"Pleasure to meet you," I say, but I don't dare proffer a hand. This girl looks as though she is willing to chew off anything I give her.

"And you." Rosalie says. Her voice is like breaking glass, beautiful and a bit terrible as well. "You're Alice's little project then?"

"Rosalie!" Esme and Alice exclaim.

I stiffen. How unpleasant of her to frame it in such a way. "I suppose I am." I say, trying to keep in mind what Alice told me in the car about how Rosalie came to stay with their family. I'd probably be a bit prickly too, if I was orphaned at fourteen and moved to be with a new family. Of course, I think ruefully, I basically had been. I reign in my emotions. Years of having classes with the Slytherins, and, of course, the crueler Ravenclaws had taught me how to deal with mean girls. "I arrived here with relatively little to my name, and Alice kindly offered to help me restock my wardrobe."

"How generous of her."

"Yes, I'm rather looking forward to Alice's assistance, especially in the arena of style. Your trends here are so different. So… provincial," I imagine venom dripping from my lips as I say the word, realizing even as I say it that I'm probably coming across in a very ugly light to Alice and Esme. Also it's an outright lie; Alice, Esme, and now Rosalie are the only muggles I've ever met that had a chance of passing by my grandmother's discerning eye with approval. "I'm afraid I'm completely adrift in such fashions." I channel my grandmother as I raise my eyebrow at Rosalie, who is dressed much more nattily than I have ever been in my entire life.

Her smile is ice. "Perhaps I'll come and help you then," she hisses. "I have a good eye for detail that might help you stay away from the rattier of the tee shirts." Rosalie sails out of the room like a frigate in a strong southern wind.

"Oh dear," I hear Esme breathe from behind me.

I turn to face her, entirely repentant, only to find her and Alice biting back amusement.

Before I can offer a true and sincere apology, Alice stops me. "Artfully done, Isabella, really. Rosalie needs a good verbal sparring before she can warm up to anyone and you've accomplished that in the first ten minutes."

"Be nice to your sister," Esme admonishes, but she looks as though she agrees with Alice.

"I got you all wrong," Alice looks at me thoughtfully, ignoring her mother's warning. "I had you figured for a Jane but you are most certainly an Elizabeth."

I have no idea to what she might be referring, and so I simply smile sheepishly, take the sandwich that Esme offers me, and follow her from the kitchen.

"Now I'm not going to give you the full tour now, we've got too much to do," Alice says over her shoulder as we walk through a formal dining room and into what looks like a sunroom. "But that was obviously the kitchen, and the dining room, and this is the solarium. That statue on the couch is my boyfriend, and all about him is the air of seriousness and solitude which will not lift until sundown, which is when he actually animates and—" She cuts herself off with a squeal as the boy in question leaps from his spot on the couch and bodily tackles her.

I'm not so close to Alice that I leap out of the way by necessity but I do move back swiftly. The boy is tall, not as tall as Emmett but he towers over little Alice, and has golden hair similar to Rosalie's. As he swings her around I see several flashes along his arms and neck, as though he's covered in scar tissue and it's catching the light as he turns. This, combined with the teeth, combined with the glow, tell me that he's dangerous. As dangerous a creature as I've ever encountered.

As though he can sense my fear he turns toward me, his golden eyes boring into mine. "Isabella," he says quietly. "You have been all Alice can talk about for days." His voice is velvet and accented in a way that the others' are not. "And I am pleased that you are here at last."

"As am I," I say, relaxing my body but remaining on alert. A houseful of unknown magical creatures is not what that dark thing in the back of my head needs. My back has been prickling unpleasantly since the failed handshake with Emmett. I know exactly where my wand is, I can feel it tucked into the back of my bra, nestled between my shoulder blades, easily reachable if I need it, whispers that dark thing.

"Put me down you oaf," Alice is saying, "You're holding up the mission. We have to go upstairs before Rose gets board waiting for us and retreats to the garage."

It's news to me that Rose is waiting for us, but Jasper drops Alice gently to the ground with a soft, fond smile. "I'll see you later then, darling. Good luck Isabella," he nods to me.

I nod back and then we are off, up a flight of stairs to a hallway that seems to hold more rooms than are in my dad's entire house, closets and bathrooms included.

Three doors down on the left is a room decorated in clean lines of white and periwinkle. To my shock but not to Alice's Rosalie is seated on the bed, flipping through a magazine absentmindedly.

"About time," she says without even glancing up. "I thought I'd turn to dust waiting for the two of you."

"Our apologies Queen Rosalie," Alice snarks, heading directly for a pair of double doors that I can only guess are a closet.

I'm half right. The doors do lead to a closet but it's not a small room that holds a few clothes. Rather it is an entire room the same size, or perhaps even bigger, than the room we're currently in. I can't see the far wall of it in any case, as there are too many racks of clothing blocking my view.

"Do you have the list?" Rosalie asks, and it takes me a moment to realize she's talking to me.

"Oh, yes," I say, pulling it out of my skirt pocket and handing it to her.

She unfolds and reads it swiftly, her brow wrinkling in concentration as she looks over how little I truly have and how much I am going to need.

"You might actually be able to get most of this from Alice," she says absentmindedly, all traces of her earlier hostility now absent in the face of a project.

"No," I start to say, "I'm just here to see what's in style." But she cuts me off.

"Of course you're not," Rosalie scoffs. "You're here to go shopping through Alice's closet. What you don't find here we'll find in Port Angeles tonight or tomorrow." She shoots me a look when I try to protest. "Do you see that closet? Alice is very spoiled by our parents. She has far too many clothes. You will take what you like without giving it a second thought because that's how she's going to give it to you. It's not charity," she says with a lowered voice. "It's the bonds of friendship. Don't reject her now."

For a moment I look at Rosalie, really look at her. She's strong, yes. Also a bitch, I decide, though she's probably proud of that. But she's also perceptive, and I think she understands her sister quite well. I nod in response. I won't fight this.

"Isabella!" I hear Alice call from the back of the closet, "Come back here! I've found some things for you."

 **An extra long chapter to make up for the fact that I abandoned yall for so long! Let me know what you think!**


	12. Chapter 12

The long process of shopping in Alice's closet begins with long sleeve shirts. I reject three of the twelve that she has gathered right off the bat, because they have all-lace backs that will almost certainly raise questions among my new friends. Then we move on through each category with out trying anything on. It goes like this: Alice, working within a category, picks out what she thinks will fit me and match my style and then lets me narrow down the selections further before Rosalie takes the clothes back to the room and sets them on the bed. Only after we've gone through the entire list will I try things on.

Based on my personal style, Alice and Rosalie continue adjusting the checklist they apparently created together earlier this morning, before Alice called me and came to my house and long before my kitchen confrontation with Rosalie. Rosalie is by no means warm but she is efficient and within an hour we've picked out everything that I'll try on and come up with a final checklist of the items I should walk away with at the end of the day.

Together we narrow down trousers from four to two pair and increase skirts from two to five. Alice insists that I'll need eight dresses and after seeing her closet I relent, some of her things are just too pretty to politely decline. So it goes. Two cardigans and three jumpers. Three long sleeve blouses and two short sleeve. A whopping eight pairs of shoes, which both Alice and Rosalie insist upon, even after I put up a substantial fight.

Finally I begin to try things on. Immediately things start to go downhill though. The first issue becomes where to change. Alice has no problem with me changing in her room, while she and Rosalie sit on armchairs on the other side of the bed. It's faster than me retreating into the closet every time I switch outfits, and it will prevent me from not showing things I don't like, she reasons. She's not wrong, but the dark thing in the back of my brain screams that there is no way I can expose myself like that. Not with the way my back….

Eventually we come to a compromise. I'll dress in the mouth of the closet, just out of sight of Rosalie and Alice in their chairs but still technically in the room.

I strip down to my underwear, sufficiently embarrassed for kicking up a fuss for what seem like a simple modesty issue to the Cullen sisters, and start in on the pile of dresses first.

It's then that I come across my second problem: the dresses that seemed modest enough on hangers have deep scooping necks on me, and my upper back is very exposed in many of them. The first time I accidentally catch a glimpse of my back in a mirror I shed very hot, very real tears.

Even worse, there's no way to hide it from Rosalie and Alice, who must have some type of sixth sense for distress.

"Bella?" Alice peaks her head around the closet door to find me wiping angrily at my eyes, frustrated that I've let such a shallow, vain thing ruin the fun we've been having 'shopping.' "Oh, Bella," she whispers, seeing my red eyes and runny nose. "Hang on. I'm going to get some tissues and tea from the kitchen."

I stand where I am, absolutely mortified by my behavior. I'm acting like a crazy person, I think angrily. Why can't I control myself? I've known Alice and Rosalie for less than a day, surely not enough time to excuse this level of insanity.

"Isabella," Rosalie's voice startles me out of my downward spiral. Unlike Alice, whose gaze had focused solely on my face, Rosalie's eyes find the mirror immediately and I can tell that she can see what I saw. It's ugly. It's red and purple, gouged and grotesque. It's truly the aftermath of a battle, an illustration of the cost of war.

Her eyes flash and her mouth tenses.

"I'm so sorry," I say pathetically, wiping swiftly at my eyes, "I don't mean to be this dramatic, I swear. It's just been a tough few weeks and I hadn't seen what it looked like before now…" My own words make the tears come faster though, and I find it better to stop before I cannot.

"What's there to be sorry for?" Rosalie asks, her voice gentle and angry at the same time. "I'd cry too if someone did that to me."

For some reason her words make me laugh. What an awful and true thing to say. I tell her so.

Rosalie shrugs. "Tell me you at least took as big a chunk out of him as he took out of you."

"He's dead," I reply honestly, perhaps too honestly.

"Good." Rosalie smiles viciously.

We stand quietly for a moment. "I never put much stock in my appearance," I say carefully, "At least, not before. But I woke up in the hospital and my back hurt so badly and of course I knew what had happened, I knew how bad it probably was, based on, you know, context clues and such." I take a deep, shaking breath, "But I didn't look. I refused to look at it because I knew it'd be ugly and I didn't want to see how ugly I was."

"Do you want me to look?" Rosalie says after a minute. "Do you want me to see the whole thing, so that I can tell you?"

I think about it for a minute, really give it some thought. Do I want to know the full extent of my disfigurement? Do I want Rosalie, and probably Alice too if she comes back soon, to see it?

"Rosalie," I say carefully, using her name for the first time, "Rosalie, what you can see now isn't the worst of it. In fact it's probably the best. It gets much much uglier lower down."

Rosalie meets my eyes and I see a deep pain, an unfathomable abyss that I've seen too many times in the mirror. "I've seen some very ugly things, Bella. I doubt this will be the ugliest."

She doesn't say anything, even after I pull off the dress and turn around. She doesn't make a sound, and I appreciate that, I suppose. I think it would be worse if she had an audible reaction.

Just as I think this Alice comes in, "Here! I've brought tea and Kleenex, it'll—" there's a crash as she drops whatever it is she's holding. I hear a curse. A scramble.

"Way to go, butterfingers," I hear Rosalie's biting ridicule past the roar of blood in my ears. My stomach feels like it's in my throat. So it's that bad, is it?

"Gosh I am just so clumsy!" Alice exclaims, but it's for my benefit, I can tell.

As Rosalie turns away from me to help Alice pick up pieces of the tea mug, I scramble to put back on my tee shirt and skirt. It's time for me to go. I gave it a try, as Dad wanted me to and now it was time to go home. If I got out to the highway I could apparate home and none of the Cullens would see me. I'd live out the rest of the summer in solitude and the Cullen sisters would only remember me as an odd anecdote: remember that charity case we took on with the messed up back and no control over her emotions?

I make it halfway down the landing before Alice's cold hand catches my arm.

"Please don't go." Her eyes are huge and they bore into mine. We're both seeing each other through a sheen of tears, though Alice seems to have a much better handle on her emotions than I do on mine. "Please come back. Rosalie's picking out new dresses and I'll make you a new cup of tea."

I glance furtively past the bannister and toward the front door. From the corner of my eye I think I see a flash of hair, Alice's boyfriend maybe, but the color reminds me of Winifred's, a bright yellow in the thin sunlight that filters through the overcast sky and in through the windows. _What, do the Gryffindor's have some kind of monopoly on bravery?_ Her voice floats through my mind, unbidden. From somewhere deep within me a secret strength rears its head, and I nod in acquiescence, allowing Alice to lead me back to her bedroom.

 **As always, I await your reviews! Thank you so much to all of you who have already let me know what you think. I love reading all of your reviews and honestly they keep me writing!**


	13. Chapter 13

When all is said and done, I have everything on my list, excepting a raincoat, underwear, and toiletries, courtesy of Alice's absurdly large closet and Rosalie's brutal efficiency. I find it highly suspect that Alice just so happens to have an entire wardrobe's worth of clothing that not only suits my taste but fits me as well. Whenever I try to bring this up, however, the sisters merely laugh me off and hand me another dress to try on.

We don't talk about my tragic crying jag, or even my scars for that matter. It's almost as though the entire incident never happened, except for the fact that there's a new mug of tea within minutes of my returning to the bedroom and twice I catch Alice with a faraway, troubled look in her eye.

For the most part though, we shake it off, and the afternoon isn't altogether unpleasant. Alice is opinionated, and very vocal, though never mean about it. Rosalie is much more taciturn, but when she does say something I almost always agree with her. That color _does_ wash me out and those trousers _are_ positively garish. All the while Alice peppers me with questions, not about my past per se, but about my likes and dislikes.

What is my favorite subject in school? "Literature," I lie, unable to come up with another subject that muggles might study formally. The follow-up is, naturally, what is my favorite book. It's an easier question, in that I name an author and Alice replies that she hasn't heard of their work.

What do my friends and I usually do on the weekends? "A bit of this and a bit of that," I reply vaguely. When pressured: "We study for the most part, actually. If our – football team wins then there's a party in the dorms. If someone a birthday then there's a party in the dorms. End of marking periods or exams, well… you get the pattern."

What do we do during school hols? "Concerts, when someone we like is playing. Football games during the season." I hold a few things back, of course. In the past there have been days filled with swimming in the river that runs through the orchard on the east side of Winifred's parent's estate. Nights when we lie on the south terrace at my grandmother's country manor and see if our astronomy lessons from the previous year have stuck. Weekends when we arrive at clubs only to be greeted by school-mates and cries of _The Fearsome Foursome! Arrived at last!_ Full moon nights when we put on ritual robes and try our hand at some of the more ancient magics and potions, just for fun. Sleepovers that sometimes last for weeks.

"What's it like, going to a boarding school?" Alice asks, as we pack my new clothes into a set of garment bags that, once again, she insists she wont miss.

The question takes me off-guard and so I answer it honestly, with a shrug. "I've never known anything different, to be honest. And I've never known anyone who didn't attend one."

"You mean you didn't go to a public school? Or like… a school near your home? I thought you said you started your school at 11." The words aren't accusatory; in fact they're almost falsely nonchalant. Alice doesn't even look up from where she's stacking shoeboxes. From her place on the bed, Rosalie looks as though she hasn't even heard the question.

I wince, slightly, if only because my next answer is going to make me sound unbelievably posh. "I had tutors that came to the house. My grandmother was rather old fashioned. It wasn't that uncommon among my friends though!" I quickly defend myself, although neither Alice nor Rosalie looks too shocked by my confession. "Most of us were kept at home until we were old enough to go away."

Alice gives me a side eye, but keeps her mouth shut. I can tell that she wants to needle me some more but at that moment a crisp, polite knock sounds from the door. "Come in!" Alice trills.

Jasper pokes his head into the room, and his eyes search out and immediately find Alice's face, which lights up when she sees him. "Hey darling, how's it going here?" he drawls.

"We're all finished up! Just packing things away now," she smiles.

"Y'all going to Port Angeles for the rest this afternoon?" He asks, "Or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow I think. It's a bit late to head out today."

"Excellent." Jasper grins his pointy grin directly at me. "Emmett and I feel like a movie. Bella you wanna stay and watch with us? We'll let you pick."

I'm taken aback, both by the invitation to stay and the offer to let me choose. A glance toward Alice and Rosalie tell me that they're not going to give me a hint as to what they would like me to do. Quickly I think over the pros and cons of staying in this house for an additional few hours. On the plus side, staying here with the Cullen siblings will be far more interesting than sitting at home alone. Conversely, more time in this house, surrounded by these people, would give me more ways to expose how little I actually know about interacting with muggles, and more time for the dark thing in the back of my head to grow more and more paranoid.

After a suspiciously long pause I nod in assent. "That sounds fun, Jasper. Thank you for inviting me."

Alice beams as though I have just passed some type of test. Rosalie examines her nails with disinterest.

"Excellent," Jasper enthuses. "Why don't you girls head downstairs to pick out a film and let Em and I carry down your bags?"

"Aww, thanks babe," Alice coos, and she kisses him on the cheek. "Come along, Bella! The big strong men are going to take care of all this."

"Can I help?" I automatically offer. It's quite a bit that I seem to have accumulated, and I'm sure that the literal piles of clothing aren't necessarily light. Jasper merely shrugs me off with an, 'It's alright doll' and gestures me out of the room. Having been summarily dismissed, Alice, Rosalie, and I retreat to the living room downstairs.


	14. Chapter 14

Looking at the Cullen's collection of films, I come to the not altogether surprising conclusion that I know next to nothing about this particular aspect of muggle culture. I knew before, of course, that movies existed from my dad, but that knowledge has only ever been in the vaguest sense of the word. My experiences with television entirely consist of watching baseball, and sometimes the nightly news, with my dad.

Within an instant the Cullens change all that though.

The shelf that Alice shows me to is filled with row upon row of little boxes with titles and graphic depictions on them, like books but without all the paper. Some of the boxes are bigger than others, VHS and DVD, Alice explains, and everything is ordered by genre first and then alphabetically. It's dizzying to put it mildly.

By process of elimination I rule out the 'Romance', 'Drama', and 'Tragedy' portions of the shelf, figuring that the boys might not appreciate something too overwrought. I also rule out 'Horror' and 'Documentary', reasoning that I don't need anything more horrifying than I already have and I don't need reality at the mo' either.

Finally, out of a sea of 'Action', 'Sci-fi', and 'Classics' I choose one with the most promising picture: white clad heroes superimposed over an ominous black mask. The box says something about being 'Episode IV' but I check with Alice and she gives me the go-ahead with a wide, pointy smile and shows me how to work the machine.

"Excellent!" Emmett booms when he sees the start up menu flash across the television screen. He drops the bags of clothing on a bench near the front door and proceeds to throw himself down on the couch next to Rosalie, who rolls her eyes at him. "I knew I liked you for a reason lil' Bella!"

Jasper makes less of a fuss, but he's obviously pleased as well. "Nice choice," he says quietly as he seats himself next to Alice and presses a button on the remote to start the movie. "You ever seen it before?"

I shake my head. Emmett starts to say something, but Rosalie shushes him and we all sit back to read the yellow words as they scroll across the screen.

An hour and a half later and I am curled into a ball in the armchair, utterly enthralled by what I am seeing. Everything is absolutely astounding, from the desert landscapes to the robots that carry holograms to the ships hurtling through space. After a while, even Emmett gives up on making fun of me for my reactions because I am reacting to _everything._

"It's like magic." I breathe as we all watch a light saber battle. I'm trembling with sympathetic adrenaline as I watch the young hero parry and block. "Have you ever seen anything so miraculous?"

Out of the corner of my eye I see Emmett's head jerk in my direction in shock and I can tell he's about to say something but Jasper beats him to the punch. "You haven't seen a lot of movies, have you?"

"We didn't have a television," I reply absentmindedly, too caught up in the Force to care that I might be coming across as odd.

Jasper nods, "Well I've seen plenty, and this one still gets me every time."

Half an hour later, we're watching the award ceremony when the back door opens and a burst of wind gushes through the doorway.

"Honey, I'm home," a jovial voice calls, and I turn to see Doc from a few days ago smiling and shrugging out of his coat which, as Alice predicted, is noticeably damp from rain. "Oh, sorry!" he says much quieter when he sees the five of us huddled in front of the television.

"Hi daddy!" Alice tosses over her shoulder. "It's okay, we're t-minus thirty seconds from the end."

"Did you have a good day, dearest?" Esme asks, emerging from some other corner of the house, summoned by the sound of actual, non television generated sound.

"It was busy," I can hear Carlisle respond faintly, over the noise of the crowd cheering on the heroes. "I think Edward had a nice time at least. It's good for him to have something to do. He's checking on something in the garage; should be in in a moment." As if to confirm his words, the sound of someone stomping off their shoes on the back porch can be easily heard. Another strong gust of wind ruffles through the still open doorway, swirling a few loose hairs from my braid around before it rushes back out.

It's in the moment between the end of the film and the credits that I hear it, a snarl that rips through the air and sets my skin and brain afire.

Before I'm aware of what I'm doing I'm out of my chair and halfway across the room, breathing hard and looking for my exit. Behind me a cheery, triumphant march is playing over the speakers but I can barely hear it over the roar of blood in my ears.

I'm not the only one to react either; in the same amount of time it takes me to move, Alice and Rosalie relocate to closer to the door and Jasper and Emmett are gone from the living room entirely. I appear to be the only one breathing hard though.

"Oh dear," Carlisle murmurs. My focus zeros in on him, and immediately I notice that out of everyone, he is the only Cullen that has not moved entire feet from where he stood mere seconds earlier.

The movie music continues to play, comedically, grotesquely juxtaposed to the scent of fear and uncertainty that is quickly filling the room.

All of the Cullens are standing stock-still, concentrating on something that is clearly just out of my range of hearing and sight. After a few moments though, something changes, and they turn to instead look at me.

The dark thing in the back of my head rages. That sound, that snarl, is the sound of danger. It's the sound that one hears right before one gets torn to shreds by sharp teeth and ragged claws. I would know. It's a sound I hear in my nightmares regularly.

It takes all of my self-control to keep from pulling my wand, throwing a few curses, and apparating away. As it is I'm as far from the back door as I can get without physically exiting the room. Consequently I'm also as far away as I can get from the Cullen patriarch and the three Cullen women.

They aren't looking at me with anything other than concern though. None of them have made a move toward me, I think to myself. None of them have even tried to approach. They haven't exactly explained either, but I have the distinct feeling that these people could kill me within an instant if they really wanted to. _Danger!_ The dark thing had screamed from its place in the back of my head all day. And yet here I stand.

"Isabella," Esme's voice breaks the spell that seems to have descended over the room. It is quiet, and sweet, and unthreatening. She doesn't move from her place at Doc's side but she does hold her hands out slightly, palms up, as if showing me that she is unarmed. "Isabella, are you alright?"

Immediately I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. Instantaneously doubt prickles over me. Did I imagine the noise? Did I react for no reason? Are they looking at me the way that one would look at an insane animal, pityingly?

 _No,_ I remind myself sternly, _they all reacted to it too, even if it wasn't the same. They heard it too._ Slowly I nod. "I'm fine." I look from face to face, searching for some kind of explanation, but I find none.

It's an awkward kind of standoff, and it isn't made any better when Jasper ducks back into the room, rain drenched and almost minutely bedraggled.

He nods at me while speaking lowly to his family. "It's gonna be fine. Emmett's taking him for some air."

Almost as soon as we make eye contact I feel something wrap itself around my brain. The feeling reaches out in tendrils that are both cloying and numbing. For a second I am drowning in a sea of calm, fighting against the alien emotion invading my mind.

An instant later though the feeling is gone and I am more in shambles than ever. I see Jasper's eyes widen almost imperceptivity and that alone tells enough of a story.

"I think," I say, in measured tones that don't begin to express the turmoil the last few minutes have thrown me into, "I think that I should go home."

 **I gave you two at a time, just because I know that the last chapter was basically filler material. I can be generous when I try :)**


	15. Chapter 15

The question of what exactly the Cullens are quickly consumes my every waking minute.

I start with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures' classification system: beasts, beings, and spirits. I pour over the textbooks I have tucked away in my rucksack. I make list after list of physical characteristics, environmental factors, lifestyle traits, socialization and feeding habits.

Fast, cold, with sharp teeth and monochromatic eyes. Settled, semi-permanent or perhaps permanent dwelling and large familially structured grouping. Partial isolation from muggles, but an ability to interact with them. I pour over every detail of my time in the Cullen house in my mind's eye, cataloging everything. Every factor, every observation is another piece of the puzzle.

I almost give up the ghost, so to speak. After all, what does it matter if I never see Alice and her family again? The ride back to my house three days ago with Doc, who I learn is actually named Carlisle, gave me no indication as to whether I would ever see any of the Cullens again.

 _The car is quiet. It's an awkward, oppressive sort of silence, especially given the fact that the drive to my house clocks in at a little over fifteen minutes. Doc, Carlisle I mean, is cool and relaxed in the driver's seat though._

 _It's a stark contrast to the grim silence that accompanies me out to the garage after my declaration that I'd like to leave. Doc immediately volunteers to drive me, silencing Alice's would-be quick response with a look of absolute authority. Rosalie and Jasper give me worried, searching looks as they carry the bags and bags of clothing out to Doc's shiny black automobile. I'm so uncomfortable, so desiring to flee, that I don't even protest this gift of clothing and shoes, which is certainly inappropriate now more than ever. I slip into the passenger seat as Doc murmurs quiet reassurances to his wife and children. Reassurances of what, I don't know, and I'm not sure that I care._

 _As we pull out of the garage and begin the long, slow wind to the highway I see a flash of bronze and ice through the trees, just for a minute and then it is gone. A shiver passes down my ruined back, and I feel rather than hear the echo of a predatory snarl._

 _Doc doesn't say anything, and he certainly doesn't offer any type of explanation, any sort of excuse for… I'm not even sure I know what happened. It's a jumble of nerves and adrenaline in my memory and I don't much care to examine either my reaction or the Cullens'._

 _He finally speaks as he pulls his car into my father's driveway. "Isabella," he says, and I can see in his eyes that he has a million things that he wants to say. I don't really want to hear any of them, however, and so I turn away from him and get out of the car. Silently we unload the car together and carry my new wardrobe, my trophy of participation in this whole shitty day, up to the porch. I let myself in and Doc disappears._

 _Hours later, after I have sorted everything and found a place for it in my bedroom in my father's house and after the last traces of adrenaline have leaked out of my bloodstream, I sink on to the bed, curl into a ball, and do not cry. I'm too exhausted to do much other than lie quietly, and that's how Dad finds me when he gets home from work._

 _"How was it Bells?" He asks. I look at him sadly and I can tell that he just knows the answer to his question, so I don't bother to answer. He nods. Kisses my forehead. Turns the lights off in my room. Leaves me be._

 _It's not until the next morning that my mind begins to race with possibilities._

The answer doesn't come immediately. It ducks and evades me but I pursue it with an almost Gryffindoric obsession. Five years of Care of Magical Creatures with Professor Hagrid has given me a strong instinct for when something is dangerous. Five years of classes with Slytherins has given me a nasty conniving, competitive streak. Five years of being a Ravenclaw has given me a dogged sense of determination in the pursuit of knowledge. So I persist.

Dad gives me my space, which isn't hard to do, given that he has to work a weekend shift to cover for a sick deputy. I spread out my work on the kitchen table, so that when he's home he can see me being active, invested in something other than the past. For the past two nights we've eaten takeout around the various pieces of parchment, quills, inkwells, books, and scrolls.

At least my quest gives me something t do, I reason as I highlight a passage on non-human spiritual apparitions. Logically however, I know that this is just a coping mechanism, and a relatively unhealthy one at that. Really I'm just avoiding having to deal with my own neuroses. I'm also avoiding the knowledge that none of the Cullens have tried to contact me since our disastrous Friday evening.

I'm narrowing in on an answer to my question when I'm interrupted by a gentle _tap tap tap_ on the kitchen window.

"Absolam!" I greet the large Ural owl as I throw open the sash to let him in. He flutters to my out-stretched arm with a gentle _uhwo-oh_ and drops a letter on the table. I know he's got to be a bit tired, having just traveled from Fayge's home in Yorkshire to me, and so I quickly fetch him some water and a chunk of jerk chicken from last night's take-out.

As Absolam dives for the food I dive for the letter he's brought me with equal hunger. The handwriting is indeed Fayge's delicate scrawl and I tear past the seal eagerly.

Dearest Isabella,

It's been a quiet week here. Mum and Dad have been busy with the shop, which leaves me to putter around the house like some elderly housewitch. I actually finally read that book you lent me back in third year. You remember, that one about the fawn and the wardrobe? It was actually quite good. I'll bring it back to school with me, if you haven't already despaired of ever seeing it again and have thus bought a new copy.

In other news, Andy Abbot wrote me yesterday to say that word around his dad's office (he works for the Wizarding Examination Authority, you know) is that they'll be administering OWLs the last two weeks of August, just before start of term. No idea where they'll be held, or how they plan on getting the results in time to give us our timetables, but at least we know to start revising. I've already drawn up a schedule and ordered some supplementary texts but I'm just over doing it because our education last year was just a mess, not because I'm actually worried about exams. (Wonder if they'll make us take the Muggle Studies exam, those sorry sods. Technically they're legally obligated to make all of us sit for it, since i required course last year. _Muggles are A) to be feared B) to be loathed C) to be subjugated D) to be used as Manticore chow or E) all of the above._ Think I might deliberately fail that one.) Anyhow Andy's trying to spread the word and I told him I'd let you know, so that you'll be in the same miserable boat as the rest of us, and spend your entire summer revising for exams.

Let me know if you need to borrow any books. Or if you want me to order them, since you don't have an owl of your own. Speaking of, I've told Absolam to stick around so that you can send off some letters of your own (at the very least a reply to me).

I miss you Belle. Summer is lonely without my friends at my side. Write back soon.

All my love,

Fayge

P.S. Dumbledore's dead, the war is over, and McGonagall is in charge of new staff hires, which of course means that this year's wager for Defense Professor will be significantly more boring than those of past years. You just know the old battle axe'll only interview the sane, qualified, and competent. Too bad, I always sort of hoped we'd wind up with a vampire. Ta!

I read and re-read the letter, my mind whirring. I'll have to start revisions immediately, of course, because Fayge is right, our fifth year was nothing short of catastrophic. Good old Andy for giving us the heads up. And… and…

I woop and kiss the parchment as the pieces fall into place, startling poor Absolam who gives a critical who-ut and flutters off to a more peaceful part of the house, chicken thigh still dangling from his beak.

Of course Fayge would be the one to give me my answer. I read her last sentence again and sit heavily in my chair.

Vampires, I think. Of course. The Cullens are vampires.

 **Bear with me through finals season, friends! Updates will be slow but I haven't forgotten you! In the meantime, let me know what you think.**


End file.
